The Omnipresent: Building a Legacy of Access and the Hope for the AAAIM Community

Because I didn't have role models that way.

Yes, that's exactly what I was gonna get to, is I think that that's very...

One, that's unsurprising, but it's also, I think, a testament of the generation that you grew up in, right? Like, you guys were trying to break that bamboo ceiling, which in some ways still exists, but it's because that there wasn't the visibility of these faces at that level.

And so the aspiration instead was not a certain role or a person, but it was what the outcome could provide you.

So it's the, "Let's get a yacht," [laughs] or something.

And that's why I had to convince people to come on the podcast, right? And they're like, "Oh, yeah, like, it's not really gonna benefit me." I'm like, "I- I don't care if it benefits you.

It's gonna benefit the community," right? 'Cause I was like, 'cause you're in a very prominent role, you're a role model, and the more people know your story, then they can aspire to be you.

And I think that's really, really important.

I think that's really important for the community.

When Barack Obama became president, like, all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, you mean you don't have to be a white guy to be the President of the United States?" Like, that gave everyone hope.

That's what you want.

You want people to have hope, you want people to try, you want people to have role models, 'cause if you see that Joe Bae, who's the co-CEO of KKR, wow, that's Asian dude, right? Korean dude, right? Asian dude.

But like, oh, wow, that's cool, right? If I go to Harvard, [laughs] work 45 years at KKR, maybe I could do that.

Or Columbia.

[laughs]

Right.

Or, you know, if you look at someone like someone that we both know, Kim Liu, right, who's the, um, CEO and, of, you know, Columbia Investment Management Company, right? Like, if you hear her story and, like, how she leads and like, wow, that's, like, tangible.

And she's so down to earth as well, too.

She's an amazing role model, right? And it's not just from the Asian community, right? You think about, like, Robert Smith and Vista and, like, all the great non-white guys that do things.

[laughs] It's just like, oh, it gives everyone hope.

So I think part of doing the podcast is being able to extract those stories and then, you know, leave a library for folks that are up and coming to kind of learn from, to aspire to be, and then to be able to give back as well, too.

So part of what I've done in, you know, the last five years or so with AAIM is...

And we don't get paid.

[laughs]

[laughs]